Crystal Dreaming
by Kenderlyn
Summary: The Prince of Midgar is forced to marry before his sixteenth birthday, but as they say, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Shounen ai, and later some hints of shoujo ai.
1. Too Many Suitors...

Too many suitors...  
  
Not mine. This is just a rough draft, and the finished form will be posted on my site, and maybe sent to a few others.  
  
/Thoughts/  
  
Long-sleep = like the druid sleep in the Shannara books. For her life to be extended, the Sorceress has to sleep for an extended time. This is the moral way to extend your life. Obviously, there are other, less savoury methods in existance.  
  
The young prince sighed. /Being paraded around like a piece of meat is far from fun, whatever the bards say./ He rose to his feet. /The ordeal will start again, as soon as the first of those suitors walks through the door. I want to marry for love. Not because I have to be married by sixteen./ He wondered briefly if he could hide. /I can't do that to Father. He only want's to see me safe. After my mother died.../ He looked up at the doo as it began to open. /I wonder which one it will be today. The old man Dekim? Maybe that freak, Quinze, Maybe even the scolar, Gilon.../ he frowned as a woman came sailing through the door as though she was already Queen. /Oh no. that damned sorceress./  
  
Hilde smiled triumphantly. /Good, I am first here today, now my perfect prince will have to accept me for his bride. Ooh, Queen Hilde of Midgar has a nice ring to it. As soon as I get rid of daddy-in-law./ She walked towards Duo with a predatory expression. He frowned. She smiled.  
  
"So Prince Duo, what say you to my suit?" /This will be the start. Midgar is mine!/  
  
Duo frowned. /I have had enough of this. She is the worst choice. I can feel it. I wish I had more of forseeing than a vague sense that something is wrong with her./ Mind made up, the prince spoke aloud.  
  
"I'm afraid I must decline lady." Hilde stared at the prince in shock. /That brat should have accepted! I gave him that potion, didn't I? He should have gone along with everything I said!/ She managed a pleasant enough farewell, and left, fuming. /He will pay./  
  
The Sorceress stood at her window, thinking of revenge on the prince who had single handedly cut off her path to power. /There must be something I can do./ She went further into her tower, and flicked through her spell book. /Hmm... this sounds good, but... maybe if I add a little something to the mix./ She rose, and went back to the window.  
  
"Show me Prince Duo." The window changed, showing the prince, looking bored as yet another of those freaky men tried to win the prince's hand in marriage. /He should have chosen me! I was the only woman there!/ She rose her hands. /Ah well, you should have remembered, sweet prince, never anger a sorceress./ She rested her left palm over the image of the prince, and cast her spell. /Let's see the kingdom survive with no heir./  
  
Gilon spoke extensively, trying to win the prince's heart. He glanced at his four brothers who glared daggers at him, for monopolising the prince's attention. Then he stared at the prince in growing horror.  
  
"Your Highness!" the boy blinked, then followed the man's gaze.  
  
"By Ifrit's Hellfire!" his legs were almost entirely made of Amethyst. "How?" Then he knew. "I knew she was no good for the kingdom." He whispered, as the crystal covered his torso. /So this will be it. Smothered. Or will I? Maybe she's just planning to keep me like this until she is the only one of my suitors to survive./ He lifted his head, and looked straight at his father, as the crystal crept up his neck. "The Sorceress Hilde did thi-" he was cut off, as it covered his mouth, and crept further up. King Maxwell nodded. Even as his heart broke to see his only child dieing - as he thought - in front of him, he gave orders.  
  
"Bring me the head of the Sorceress Hilde!" the suitors ran to do as the king bade them. Even as the prince's head was covered completely.  
  
Noin stood, watching through her mirror, as her sister was dragged down by the soldiers of Midgar. The ancient sorceress, sighed. /Hilde, you never did learn that getting involved with the mortals was a recipe for disaster./ She held a hand towards the image of the crystalised prince. /He is alive. So she was planning to take him later. I think I had better tell the king. It will take some time for me to get to Midgar, and I dare not use magic this close to my long-sleep./ She turned, only to see one of the prince's suitors standing behind her. /How did he get in without my knowing?/ She saw four others behind him.  
  
"What do you wish?" the priestess mage asked them.  
  
"You serve Shiva, yes?" one with a mushroom shaped head asked  
  
"That is my chosen path, yes. Why do you ask?"  
  
"The king asked us to bring you to the palace. The sorceress that serves Lady Shiva, that lives in Fort Condor." The bald one stated.  
  
"That coincides with what I was about to do. I will go with you peacefully."  
  
"What do you see sorceress?" the king asked. She thought for a moment. Then decided.  
  
"Your son is the crystal. It is not a coating, he has been transformed completely. However, he is still alive." The king looked startled.  
  
"How can crystal be alive?"  
  
"I do not know how Hilde did it exactly, but he still lives. Possibly she was planning to take him later, after you dismissed him as dead, and keep him for herself." The king nodded.  
  
"That sounds right. How do I get my son back?" Noin frowned. /If only they hadn't been so eager to kill my sister, I could have gotten the answer from her. I can still get it from her spirit, but it will drain me for several centuries. Better to say I don't know./  
  
"I'm not sure. I can tell he lives, but there is no way that I can see to release him. Perhaps if my sister had lived, I could have forced her to tell how she did it..." the king just nodded again. He had known when he called for her, that she was sister to Hilde, but he knew there was little love lost between the pair.  
  
"Then what do I do?" Noin thought for a moment.  
  
"Find a room, in the castle, with a lock. He will have no need for sleep or sustenance in this form, thus it is far better to simply keep him in a secure place. I will take the five young men who came to me, and teach them enough sorcery to protect the boy. The kingdom will have to keep him safe from outsiders, until I can come up with an answer to how to free him. I will not lie Majesty. It could well take centuries. I have a way to take the answer from Hilde's spirit, but it will send me to sleep for several centuries, so my using that spell will serve no purpose in your lifetime."  
  
"I understand Holiness." Noin smiled at him bleakly.  
  
"Do not mistake me, if I do not find an answer in the next year, I will take that last resort, but it will not help us now." The king frowned, but simply answered her.  
  
"I will not keep you from your studies any longer Lady. All my hopes go with you." The Sorceress gave a perfunctory farewell, and left, taking Gilon and his four brothers, Jareth, Oleander, Herne, and Samweiss.  
  
And so the Legend was born. After the first year, Noin still had no answer for the king. In despair, he faded away, and finally died. The Priestess-Mage of Shiva tried her last resort, and got the answer. But as she had known, her spell drained her almost to the point of death, and she fell into a deep sleep, for one thousand years. In these thousand years, the five young men Noin had trained kept watch over Midgar, and waited for their young prince to awaken. The people spoke of the Crystal Prince, and the legend spread. Many wanted to be the one who freed him, some wanted to add him to their collections of curiosities, but always, the five sorcerers guarded the locked room in the palace. Although, in time, they performed their duties from other cities in the world. And many forgot that Prince Duo had once been a real person.  
  
[1]On to part 2  
  
[2]Back  
  
References  
  
1. http://uk.geocities.com/kenderlyn_burrfoot/Crystal/part2.htm  
2. http://uk.geocities.com/kenderlyn_burrfoot/Crystal/index.htm 


	2. The Legend Of The Crystal Prince

The Legend of the Crystal Prince  
  
/Thoughts/  
  
The Mercenary company were waiting at the coastal town of Junon. With them were the top ranking members of their empolyer's army, Commander Milliardo Peacecraft, and his second in command, Otto. Millardo had also brought along a Warrior-Preistess of Hades, a priestess of Alexander, a young priest of the Phoenix, and three of Ramuh's devotees. Trowa Barton sighed. He glanced at the resident healer of their company, Sister Catherine Bloom, a votary of Titan, the god of the land. Trowa himself, while not a priest, fought under the title of `anger of the land'. He turned to the Captain, who crept up behind him, with an almost scared look on his face. /Now that is something you don't see every day. Heero frightened./  
  
"Is she near?" The votary of Alexander had decided that Heero was her perfect husband, and was chasing him with a single minded intensity. The Scholar of Ramuh insisted it was `simple minded' intensity. The most shocking developments were Heero's agreement with that description, and the discovery that she was Commander Peacecraft's sister.  
  
"So what are we doing here?" asked Catherine.  
  
"Apparently King Treize of Mideel recently heard about the Crystal Prince of Midgar, and wants to add the amethyst statue to his collection." Catherine frowned.  
  
"That seems wrong somehow."  
  
"Yes, well, we do what we're paid for. If King Trieze wants a statue from Midgar, and is willing to pay for it, then we'll get it for him. We aren't paid to consider the moral implications of it.  
  
"Unfortunately. I cannot help but feel that taking the statue from Midgar will bring ruin on Mideel and the Company." Heero frowned. Although Catherine was not prescient as such, when she had these `feelings' then it was wisest to listen to her. Heero hadn't become Captain from ignoring his subordinates. Heero's Sunhawks had become famous, in no small amount due to the Captain's habit of listening to Catherine's warnings. /I couldn't care less about Mideel and King Treize, but if this mission will harm my Sunhawks.../ He turned abruptly.  
  
"Can anyone think of someone who will know more of the legend?" the company turned toward their Captain. One of the scouts spoke up.  
  
"Captain, An old man that lived in my home town, Nibelheim, once spoke of the Sorceress of Shiva. According to the legend, she was sister to the witch that put the spell on the Crystal Prince in the first place."  
  
"Did the old man tell you where this Sorceress was?" Trowa asked dryly. The scout flushed.  
  
"No, Sir, he didn't."  
  
"If anywhere, Mercenary, she will reside in Fort Condor." This was not a member of the company. Heero turned to the source of the voice. It was the male devotee of Ramuh.  
  
"You have heard of this legend... Of course. You are a scholar." The onyx eyed man nodded gravely.  
  
"Just so. I have heard this legend, and I fear that Trieze's greed will be the downfall of many people."  
  
"You know this king Treize well?" Heero asked.  
  
"Some. He was a patron of my studies, when I arrived from Wutai. I prefered Philosophy, sprinkled with ancient legends."  
  
"Which would be where the Crystal Prince comes in." noted Trowa. The man nodded.  
  
"Who are the women? Your sisters?" the man looked embarrassed.  
  
"Ah, no. they are my wives."  
  
"What? Both of them? I didn't think it was legal."  
  
"In Wutai, it is customary to take a second wife if the first feels her to be closer than a sister. They then become known as sister-wives" Heero just nodded. Strange people, strange customs. Perhaps the scholar would look on the customs of his native Bone Village to be just as odd. The Captain turned to the company.  
  
"Everyone. The wisest path appears to be South-West towards Fort Condor, where we hope to ask the Sorceress for advice." The Company just packed up, and prepared to move. Commander Peacecraft stormed over, with his sister in tow.  
  
"What do you think you are doing? You were told to go to Midgar to collect the statue for His Majesty! The Sorceress has nothing to do with this!"  
  
"Yes, she does. The Legend states that she is sister to the one who supposedly cursed the prince in the first place, and as such, we should find out how much of the legend can be trusted. Or would you like to go back and say you spent several months searching for a hoax?" There was no answer. The Commander was outmanoeuvred, and he knew it.  
  
/Silence. As there had been for many centuries. Aware of time passing, yet not living in it. I must wake. Soon. Will the other? Can there really be an end to his imprisonment? I know what must be done, but can it be done? Wake, I must wake. They are-/  
  
"-Coming." Noin raised her head from the pillow it lay on. "Who is coming?" she stood carefully. "Show me the strangers." Her mirror cleared, and she saw the Mercenaries going towards Midgar. "Show me the leader of this group." She frowned, as the image parted. On one side, there was a tall aristocratic man, with long blond hair, on the other, a small, lithe man, with a hidden strength. She marked the two in her mind, then called out. "Gilon!" the image of her former student appeared.  
  
"Lady, you are awake?"  
  
"Yes. And yes, I have the answer to Prince Duo's impisonment."  
  
"How do we free him?"  
  
"Not yet. There is a Mercenary Company heading to Midgar, led by these two men." She made the image of the two leaders appear in front of the man. "Can you tell me anything about them?"  
  
"Actually, yes. That dark haired one was studying under Jareth. I remember seeing him when I went to Bone Village, in the north. The blond... I think is from Treize's kingdom in Mideel."  
  
"Where are you all? Why are you not all in Midgar?"  
  
"I am in Midgar. I leave only rarely. The spells you put on the Prince's room protect him. As for my brothers, Jareth, as I said is in Bone Village, teaching the art of the Warrior. Samweiss is in in Cosmo Canyon, Herne is currently living in Nibelhiem, and Oleander is in Wutai, teaching the scholars of Ramuh."  
  
"I see. Call them, and tell them that I have the knowledge of how to wake His Highness, but we will have to work together to find the means."  
  
"Yes, Lady." The contact severed, and Noin watched the Mercenary a little more. /So, Jareth taught him. I will have to watch these men carefully./ She stood, and went to her notes. Carefully she lifted the ones on Prince Duo, and his thousand year imprisonment, and re-read what she had written of her sister's words.  
  
~oOo~  
  
"Hilde. Come forth sister." The flame flickered. The spell was not complicated, it merely drained the caster.  
  
"What do you want?" Hilde Demanded.  
  
"I want the remedy for what you did to Prince Duo. You are dead, you have no purpose for hiding the knowledge now."  
  
"No." the sorceress pouted. "The king had me mudered. I won't tell you!"  
  
"Hilde. You know how close I am to the long-sleep. The king will never find out." Hilde looked calculating. Then felt the constraints tighten. "You know I can force you sister. I hope you will be reasonable. I do not wish to force you."  
  
"Very well. You remember the tale of the Sleeping Beauty?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"This is similar. Except that the true love's kiss, must come to him where he is now. He exists within a dream world. The one who can wake him must enter his dreams, and wake him from there. If the other fails, they will ake in their own beds." Noin frowned. /.Into his dream world? And true loves kiss./  
  
"You could never have woken him."  
  
"No. I know that now. The other will live many times, and with many names. He is alive now, and he will live when you wake." Hilde faded. The spell breaking. Noin smiled sadly. /Who is he?/  
  
~oOo~  
  
Noin sighed. /We need to find this `other' soon. Even with the long-sleep, my time is running out./ She placed the notes in a bag, and prepared to leave for Midgar.  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Millardo looked up as the people watched them. They had met with no resistance in Midgar. The Sorceress had not been home, and the Mercenaries had reluctantly agreed to go straight to Midgar as previously ordered. He scowled. /This is ridiculous. We haven't met with any resistance. Why did Treize insist on bringing these Mercenaries with us?/ The Commander smirked as he saw the castle in the center of the city. /Midgar Tower. We are here at last./ The Soldiers walked up to the city gates.  
  
Gilon smiled slightly.  
  
"Lady, They are here."  
  
"Good. Set the trap spell at the door to the Prince's room. But it will not trigger until they have entered the room fully. We want as many people as possible to be inside when it triggers." The five men nodded, and set to work. /Soon./  
  
Quatre smiled sweetly, as they walked to the door that was supposed to hold the Crystal Prince. Milliardo had no idea. The Queen of Mideel had asked him to watch the Cmmander, she did not trust him. `too fond of pretty boys' had been her words. And not only the Prince himself, but also the Captain and his Second were very attractive, and she wanted him to stay focused on his task. That was Quatre's job. He had a vague net over the Commander. He couldn't see just how attractive the Captain and his Sub were. The Second was gorgeous. Those green eyes.  
  
Trowa watched the door. Catherine had been worried about this contract from the start. She had even tried to ask the Captain to refuse the contract. He glanced at the blond priest of the Phoenix. /Now there is one with a secret./ He focused. Heero and the Mideel Commander had reached the door, and were trying to open it.  
  
The three Ramuh devotees watched the mercenaries.  
  
"They fear this." Noted Warrior-Priestess Meiran.  
  
"Indeed. Their healer is prescient. She had a fear of this mission from the start." Healer-Priestess Sally nodded slowly.  
  
"That is believable. Have you found the answers that you sought husband?" Scholar-Priest Wufei smiled.  
  
"I believe I did. What do you both sense?"  
  
"Magic. That door is trapped." The other two looked at Meiran.  
  
"Then shouldn't we warn them?"  
  
"No, Sally. This has to happen." They turned, just as the front ranks of the combined armies collapsed.  
  
"Now all we do is wait." The six watchers waited, as the trapped soldiers started to fade, disappearing to their own beds. As they vanished, their Shieldbrothers entered the room, only to fall into the trap themselves.  
  
He stood there, watching as a beautiful figure came towards him.  
  
"The door was trapped. Why didn't I sense it?" the boy sighed.  
  
"It doesn't matter now." He said. The boy nodded.  
  
"I understand. I don't think that we were properly introduced. My name is Quatre."  
  
"Trowa Barton."  
  
"A pleasure." They watched each other, and slowly, Quatre smiled. "See you on the otherside, Trowa." They woke.  
  
[1]Back to Part One  
  
[2]One to Part Three  
  
[3]Back.  
  
References  
  
1. http://uk.geocities.com/kenderlyn_burrfoot/Crystal/part1.htm  
2. http://uk.geocities.com/kenderlyn_burrfoot/Crystal/part3.htm  
3. http://uk.geocities.com/kenderlyn_burrfoot/Crystal/index.htm 


End file.
